Leah Hawkins

Biography

A native of Philadelphia, soprano Leah Hawkins is in her third season of the Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program at Washington National Opera, performing Ma Zegner in the world premiere of Proving Up and Celestial Voice in Don Carlo. She covered the title role in WNO’s Aida, and she will also be a soloist with the National Symphony Orchestra in Bernstein’s Songfest with the National Symphony Orchestra and Maestro Leonard Slatkin. In the 2016–2017 season with WNO, she sang the role of I-Will-Sell-My-Children Mom in The Dictator’s Wife and Cousin Blanche and Sadie Griffith in Champion. In WNO’s 2015–2016 season, she appeared as Mrs. Dorsey and Amelia Boynton in the world premiere of the revised version of Philip Glass’s Appomattox and The Answerer and Ensemble in Kurt Weill’s Lost in the Stars. Her other roles include Julia Child in Lee Hoiby’s one-woman opera Bon Appétit, La Ciesca in Gianni Schicchi,La Badessa in Suor Angelica, and Giulietta in Les contes d’Hoffmann. On the concert stage, she has appeared with the Mid-Atlantic Symphony, Yale Philharmonia, New Haven Symphony, and the Baltimore Symphony. She is a recipient of a Sullivan Career Development Award, and has been a Young Artist with The Martina Arroyo Foundation’s Prelude to Performance Program, Houston Grand Opera’s Young Artist Vocal Academy (YAVA), Central City Opera, Chautauqua Opera, and The Glimmerglass Festival. She received her M.M. in Voice from Yale University and her B.A. in Music from Morgan State University.